Valentine’s Special Success Story: Lucy & Dean

We caught up with recently engaged Cambridge Weight Plan Consultants Lucy and Dean to talk about love, life as a Consultant and maintaining their weight loss.

How did you meet?

Dean:

We both met at the 2013 Cambridge Weight Plan Convention held in Telford that year. In 2013 Lucy lost five and a half stone and I lost seven, both succeeding on our weight-loss journey’s, to the point we were amazingly both shortlisted for the Slimmer of Year Awards.

I didn’t win an award, but Lucy was crowned the under 25 Slimmer of the Year, something she’s never let me hear the end of. I’ve been told since, that the first time Lucy saw me was in the day when I was having my photo taken, but for me I first saw Lucy at the Saturday evening black tie ball.

We had randomly been seated on the same table and I spotted her sitting on the far side of the 8 seat table and I was taken from that moment… I did everything, up to pushing people out of the way, to get from one side of the table to the other to sit next to her. No, this was no conventional meeting!

Lucy had been there in the day to celebrate her weight-loss success, so her mum and sister were with her. You can imagine the conversations and Lucy pretty much spent the evening giggling.

Almost Cinderella-esque, at midnight Lucy had left and we hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers. I found her on Twitter a few days later. The rest, I suppose is history, Lucy relocated and gave up a job she loved as a primary school teacher and moved in with my (at the time) 3 year old Son and I, and we haven’t looked back.

How do you support each other?

Lucy:

We support each other massively, I suppose when you have both come from a place of using eating as a crutch it would be easy for us both to allow each other to revert to those habits, but we don’t.

Dean has supported me to get out of my comfort zone and convinced me to join a running club, we have completed countless events together now; mud Runs, half marathons, 24 hour endurance events. We even ran a marathon together, I can’t exactly say I ‘liked’ him the whole way round but we got to the end.

Our lifestyle since getting together definitely suits us as we’ve both even lost a little bit more weight since meeting.

When did you know it was true love?

Lucy:

What’s that? Haha. I suppose anyone that can put up with me must love me. No, it was quite clear from the beginning we were both in a good place. He’d already met my mum and still wanted to take me on a date.

Dean:

I would never want to be without her and I knew that pretty early on. Oh and Lucy’s Mum, Kath, is lovely… and I’m honestly not saying that because she’s my future mother-in-law…

What’s it like running a business together?

Lucy:

Running a business together can be tough, you both have different ways of working but this can also be a great advantage. It allows our slimmers to have both of us, two lots of ideas, two types of support and whole lot of fun.

18 months ago, after reflecting, I specialised and went back into teaching, as I love it more than it being ‘just a job’. That decision added a lot more pressure on us as a couple, as financially I didn’t have to go back to teaching, but now I have the best of both worlds. I teach in the day and Dean sees our slimmers and organises everything so I can consult in the evenings and at weekends.

How did it feel getting into the Top 50 for the first time?

Dean:

Amazing! I had set my sights on being a Top 50 Cambridge Weight Plan Sales Champion way back in 2013 and we have both worked hard to ensure we got there. Hitting the Top 50 is just a bonus on top of our CWP careers.

What’s amazing is the success we see on a weekly basis from our slimmers. We are both obsessed with getting them to their weight-loss target and helping them make the adjustments to make their weight-loss journey a ‘life-changing’ one.

So really in being in the Top 50 is just a testament to them, our fabulous slimmers, and the life-changing weight they have lost over the years across Cheshire, Lancashire and Staffordshire at our 3 weight-loss centres.

What do you love about working with Cambridge Weight Plan?

Lucy:

Having Cambridge has meant we can have lots of family time. As a teacher I get the holidays off and we can work our client diary around that to make sure we can make many memories with each other and Dean’s son Owen. We have helped hundreds of people lose weight, gain confidence and break their ‘habits of a lifetime’ just like we did. What’s not to love!

Tell us about the proposal…

Lucy:

The proposal was a complete shock to me, we’d never discussed it and I just hadn’t thought about it. We went away for a few days over the New Year for a last minute break to Lanzarote. On New Year’s Eve we went down to the sea front, and as midnight struck, with fireworks behind us. Dean asked me to marry him, it was just perfect, he’d bought me a Haribo ring (well two in fact in case I misread the situation and ate it) so I could pick my own ring when we got back to England.

Dean:

I’ve wanted to ask Lucy to marry me for years now, but being as busy as we are I never found the right time. It may have been a last-minute booking, but I had planned to ask Lucy at midnight on New Year’s Eve for months. I’m just relieved it went as well as it did. All that matters is Lucy thinks it was perfect, I love her to bits and she’s perfect for me.

Interested in being your own boss? Starting your own business with flexible hours and with the potential of financial freedom like Lucy and Dean did? Maybe you should become a Cambridge Weight Plan Consultant.